


To Begin Where We Are

by Miss_M



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Developing Friendships, Female Friendship, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22205071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: “We’re sisters now. I just want us to get along.”
Comments: 14
Kudos: 20
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	To Begin Where We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThebanSacredBand](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThebanSacredBand/gifts).



> I own nothing.

“You put sand in my bed.”

Cassandra did not look up from the game of jacks she’d been intent on when Helen found her. The ball she used was gold, as befitted a princess of Troy, but the jacks were plain sheep knucklebones. She sat on the ground, her skirts pulled up above her knees, like she was still a little girl, and ignored Helen so intently, Helen knew it was all for show.

Helen circled Cassandra till Helen’s back was to the sun, and her shadow covered Cassandra and the ball and jacks scattered in the dust.

“Paris has sworn that he’d thrash whoever did it, but he thinks it was a servant or one of the children. I won’t tell him I saw you leaving our bedchamber, if you don’t do it again.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?” Cassandra rolled her golden ball between her palms, her eyes still downcast. Her hair was an absolute bird’s nest – Helen stared at it with quiet fascination. 

“At least you’re not lying that it wasn’t you,” Helen said. 

“I have no need to tell lies.” Cassandra looked up, her eyes glittering in the shadow cast by Helen’s body, and stood up abruptly, forcing Helen to back away a step.

“Why did you do it?” Helen asked. “I deserve to know that much. I haven’t done anything to you.”

Cassandra glanced back at her. “I know you haven’t. And I know it’s not your fault, not really. But I wish you’d go away, take Paris and leave Troy. Go somewhere else, before they all come.”

Helen wondered which part of that little speech she should try to unravel first, but Cassandra had already slipped away, leaving her toys behind. Helen bent down and picked up the golden ball, polished it clean on the edge of her cloak. 

The following afternoon, Helen sat in the inner courtyard, on a sun-warmed stone bench against the western wall, where the afternoon shadow offered respite from the day’s heat. A mother-of-pearl box sat open beside her, and she fished chestnuts dipped in honey from it, and closed her eyes at the heavy sweetness and the woody texture of the chestnuts dissolving slowly in her mouth. The golden ball, shining like a tiny sun, lay in her lap. 

“You can have one,” she said without opening her eyes, when she heard a rustle of skirts and sandaled feet to her left. “You can have two, if you’ll let me tease out the snarls from your hair.”

The sandaled feet whispered closer, and a hand snatched the golden ball from Helen’s lap. “This is mine,” Cassandra said.

Helen opened her eyes and thought that, in the afternoon light, with the setting sun giving her face a sheen like bronze and highlighting the russet streaks in her wild hair, Cassandra looked a bit like a maenad, but Helen was not frightened. 

“I was just keeping it safe for you,” Helen said and held out the box of candied chestnuts. “Go on, have one. Or two.”

Cassandra held her ball with both hands and looked down at Helen where she sat. “I’m not a child, and I don’t need your bribes.”

Helen put down the box. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re sisters now. I just want us to get along.”

Cassandra’s fierce gaze gave Helen a reprieve while it alighted on the box of sweets. “I don’t like having my hair brushed,” Cassandra said. 

“That’s because there are so many of you Trojan princesses, the servants must be run ragged with you all. No time to be gentle.” Helen smiled. “I only have one sister, and she says I have a very light hand with an ivory comb. You’d like Clytemnestra, she too has a bit of a temper.”

Cassandra laughed. Not a giggle to show she took Helen’s mild jab in the spirit in which it was intended – Cassandra’s laugh was a loud, open-mouthed, hacking burst of sound, a thunderclap of laughter. She watched Helen as she laughed, inhaled sharply, like she would turn from this violent mirth to tears in an instant, and broke off laughing like snapping a thread. 

Cassandra covered her mouth with her free hand and squeezed her eyes shut, like she’d been slapped. Helen started to rise from the bench and reached out slowly, so as not to scare the girl, but Cassandra opened her eyes and made a sharp gesture with the hand holding the golden ball, and Helen lowered her arms. 

“If you can find honeyed dates this time of year, you may comb my hair,” Cassandra muttered, her hand still over her mouth, muffling her words. “It’ll be a long siege.”

Quickly growing wise to Cassandra’s ways, Helen ignored that last comment and focused on the immediate: “Dates. Right. I will ask around next market day.”

Cassandra watched her, muttering unintelligibly behind her hand and swaying a little on her feet, and Helen thought she understood a little of what it was to be Cassandra, to live like an animal in a snare, always looked at askance by everyone, never fully trusted. A prisoner in her own skin.


End file.
